243- Embracing my uniqueness

Throughout my life, I observed trends of all sorts and refused to be part of them all : I'm a rebel and hate to be boxed into a label or a group, because I embrace my uniqueness. 

Let's be frank, we are all unique! 

Why is society trying to force us into normalcy when such a thing isn't even part of our nature ? We all have specific traits that are unique to us and no one else in world shares all our parts - we know that our DNA coding is unique; siblings and even twins don't end up identical in all things. Our teeth and fingertips are totally one of a kind. 


Outside our family, each person in the world is even more unique. 

We have varied tastes, ideologies, views on life and philosophy and background experiences that help shape us but aren't the only factors in defining who we are. 

Part of our society is the result of gatherings of mutual interests, such as the prehistoric needs to protect one another in a group against the same foes. These primitive experiences helped our ancestors survive harsh conditions, and in time the complexities of our fore-bearers' interactions grew to what they are now : society, build from groups sharing intellectual pursuits, political views, etc. 

All these are part of our needs, to feel that we belong to a group where we are understood and can talk freely about topics that we share are important, but there is a possible side effect of narrow vision. Indeed, the narrower it is, the less we can imagine the need to enrich our lives by going out of long established comfort zones and connecting with different people. (This is how prejudice si born, but outside of this entry's purpose). 

Both within and without those circles, each person will remain unique, no matter what mutual interests glued us together - but to see those aspects, we need to be open minded, truly observe and have an active dialogue so we can discover all those distinctive features and dissimilarities. 

Those novelties will bring new topics of conversations, from which we shall grow new groups, with multiple norms pertaining to each set and to each portion (which will be the individuals forming the whole). 

To cultivate variety, we must cultivate non-egocentric individualism, where each person can be its own best version of the moment, ready to improve through interactions and self-reflection alike. For this to happen, we must be, therefore, outside of any societal box and robotized rationals. 

We need to practice true free-thinking, and to be ourselves, with all those exclusive aspects of ourselves.

Throughout my life, I had been the oddball with the weirdest intellectual pursuits in comparison to all other people that I met and against any trend that I was surrounded by. 

Let me tell you a few of those differences in me starting with my school years :

• while my fellow classmates were playing games and sports, I was busy reading books (novels, astrophysics, mythology, Egyptology, ancient civilizations,  herbal medicine, some occult with astrology, I dabbled into chemistry and biology but gave up on both....)  I had gotten into most of those interests around the age of 9-10 
• a few years later, I started bird-watching
• I was the only vegetarian at school
• I was skipping many classes, and ended making a deal with my principal to attend school a bit more and became a substitute teacher to lower classes in mathematics because I was too advanced for my own grade's curriculum 
• I was the only one to have grown in a cult that wasn't following the basic religious precepts of the rest of the population around (I cannot discuss this in more details) 
• I was pointed out for my lack in physical prowess and my constant running to the restrooms in the middle of classes (I was suffering from many ailments, especially nose bleeds)
• My demeanor, way of walking and interest in feminism in my young age as well as showing more respect to women than my peers,  all brought attention to me and I recall remarks, basically naming me either a wuss, or a homosexual, which, back then, had very negative connotations and had hurt me. (It's only in adult age that I understood those better, discussed for example in my posts about my non-binary gender identity)
• To my knowledge, I was the only kid living  in a domestic violent home as my dad was the only one ever summoned to rebuke me after I'd violently responded to classmate's taunts and bullying
• As a teen, my beard had started growing in spurts but unevenly. This also caused some bullying (as if I could control how my hair decided to grow, right ?)
• I lacked of interest in sportive activities. I liked hiking down from the local mountains and talked about plants and birds
• I never ever had the clothes to follow fashion trends 
• I was the only tri-lingual at school (once I had learned all 3 languages that is) 
• oh yea, I also doubled first grade and had to change school in second and third grades 
• I was the tallest kid for the majority of my school years and because it frightened some, I was bullied for that, too 
• I quit at the end of 8th grade, and didn't continue the regular path my schooled prepared for

Some of these differences followed me into adulthood and intensified once I got back to my home-country and maternal family. My interests and demeanor continued to be labeled feminine, with scorn (but I didn't care, because I knew the problem laid on those people and not on myself).  

I own my feminist nature just like my hobbies and interests, and I don't care if society currently associates them solely to the female part of the brain. They may be indeed, but we all have both poles in our brains, no matter what our plumbing and appearance is. To me, they are just parts of who I am and what I like or believe in. 

The gap in my fashion statements grew, and in the past 2-3 years, as I have learned to embrace my non-binary self, I started wearing what I wanted :floral clothes, letting my hair grow and dyed in colors that aren't traditionally associated with male-hood, just like when I was typing in pink in chat-rooms back in 2003-2005. 

I was, most often and for over a decade, the only vegetarian and then vegan in an entire room of students or colleagues, and it's only online that I started encountering other veggies and vegans, before meeting in-person and at last, locally. Despite finally belonging with them, I'm still different in many respects, and that is fine. 

I think it's important to be mindful of one's surrounding society and environment, as in some countries, openly practicing certain differences can be fatal. Be different, but also safe. 

Discern who you talk to about your unique traits, as many supposedly open-minded people can become quite aggressive regarding certain topics, such a politics ; religious beliefs or lack there off, and even veganism can create both tension in discussions as announcing these particular differences seem to stir self-doubts and feelings of guilt that are in both cases mirrored unto "you" the one who talked about them (at least, this has happened to me a LOT). 

I'm still a geek, vegan, non-binary, atheist. I won't apologize for any of it, not anymore! 
I deem that every single so-called friends that I lost to those differences between us are people who are so insecure that they cannot deal with their own self-doubts, be it their eating habits VS my veganism, or their religious beliefs VS my atheism, that they preferred to shun and abuse me for the the thoughts and emotions I had stirred. It's their loss, in the end. 

I have many interests and I also suffer from a myriad mental illnesses because of which I cannot do certain things, but that is also fine, as I'm on the way to recovery,  and all these and many other aspects unite to form the person that I am, although I am more than the sum of my parts. 

To quote Nicole, whose blog post about embracing her differences inspired this particular entry about which I had been only vaguely thinking for a few months, "Life is way too short to 'fit in'. Be different and embrace it. There is and only ever will be one of you.

Be a flamingo in a world of pigeons. "